“I run away from—Nick,” she gasped, and again that look of terror flashed across the little pinched face.
“Don’t be frightened; you are here with me, Nora, now,” said the girl in the velvet suit. “No one can touch you here.”
“Where—is—Vita? She not come back, bring doctor?”
That was it. Vita had gone for a doctor.
“She’ll be here soon,” soothed Miss Beckwith. The Scouts stood spell bound. How wonderful to have found the poor little waif right in Nora’s own attic!
There was a sound below. Vita came stamping up the stairs.
“What is it?” she panted. Then seeing the crowd. “You come—save my poor little Lucia!”
“Yes, Vita, we are here,” replied Nora, sensing now the part that Vita had been playing. “We brought her down.”
“Poor Lucia. Vita’s baby—Vita’s bambino,” crooned the woman, as she leaned over the couch and chaffed the trembling hands.
It was a pathetic picture. The brilliantly-lighted room was like a stage with this strange drama being enacted upon it. The row of Scouts were unconsciously standing like a patrol at attention, while Nora in Fauntleroy dress, stood at Lucia’s head; and the woman in the quaint peasant attire bent over; and then, there on the soft, bright couch, lay the inert figure with the great eyes staring out from under the bandage, evidently put on the hot forehead by Vita.